Category Archives: 3D Printed Stuffs

Introducing Joe Larson Community Blogger at YouMagine

Joe Larson’s recorder

Cymon aka Joe Larson is a helpful and inspiring YouMagine Community Member who makes lots of cool & useful designs ranging from a MetaChess board, peg board hangers, abstract games, a guy Fawkes ring & a musical instrument. Joe has won awards with his 3D modeling and has written tutorials and guides on Blender and the book 3D Printing Blueprints. I’m not sure how he has the time because he has a wife and 5 kids and a full time job writing software for a BioTech company. He also has a great blog called Joe’s 3D Workbench where he talks about his explorations in 3D printing. We asked him if he’d love for us to syndicate his work, so we publish the first paragraph or a few lines of a post on his blog and then link to him for further reading. He liked the idea of sharing his work with the YouMagine community. If there are other bloggers who would like to be featured in a similar way please email joris (at) youmagine.com.. so…without further ado…

“Modeling for 3D Printing Tip 4 – Separating a Multi Part-Mesh

What happens when you download a STL that’s actually many pieces, and you only want one or two of them?“

3D Printed Toys on YouMagine

Lots of people are making cute, fun, interactive 3D printed toys on YouMagine. Below I’ve selected a few that may inspire you or make for a fun 3D print.

This lovely colorful 3D printed dump truck is by Daniel Noree.

A colorful 3D printed toy dump truck.

Daniel shows us in a video just how well the print is done and just how close this thing is to store bought toys.

Marcus Wolschon made a GoPro rail mount so you can attach a GoPro to a Nerf gun and film your Nerf battles.

3D Printed GoPro Rail mount for Nerf guns

Bauermaker made this lovely low poly monster.

Low Poly Monsta

Be3Dprinters designed this functional and fun spinning top.

Spinning top by be3d.

Thinker Thing, a great free app you can use to remix and make stuff has lots of great monsters on YouMagine.

A lovely little dino monster.

You can also use 3D printing to repair old toys and make replacement parts for them as LinearChaos did, “My son got a metal SR-71 Blackbird Pull-Back toy from the Smithsonian Air and Space gift shop, … Tonight he stepped on it and broke off the front landing gear so I printed a direct replacement.”

SR 71 toy with a 3D printed replacement landing gear

YouMagine ToS online

Today we’ve put our Terms of Service online. This is part of our Share3D project to create infrastructure for the 3D Printing community as a whole. We want to let people share more things online. We want to help them work together on creating technology & improving it. We think that the future will be one of networked decentralized innovation and as YouMagine we are building the plumbing for this future. We want to connect all the ideas to all the people who want things made from those ideas. We know that there is a community of companies and individuals working on parts of this same goal. We want to help them be they fellow travelers or competitors. So Share3D aims to give them resources for free that they can use to accelerate their development. We are sharing this ToS with the world under a Creative Commons BY SA license. Please note that we are not a law firm, this does not constitute in any way legal advice and we make no warranty in connection with this ToS. You can download or peruse our ToS here. Conceptually our ToS is very much pro user and made with a general interest in sharing.

The human readable version:

We do not expect you to transfer your rights in your contribution to us
Please respect that the platform itself remains our property
We reserve the right to remove your contribution, if we believe that is necessary
You should keep your username and password to access the platform confidential to avoid unauthorised access
We only collect and share your personal data where necessary and will not sell, rent or share it with third parties for commercial reasons
Our control over contributions is very limited so we cannot accept any liability for the uploading, sharing, adapting, validity, legitimacy, 3D printing etc. of these contributions
Please use our notice-and-takedown procedure if you believe a user of our platform infringes your rights.

We hope you enjoy our ToS. Unhappy with a portion of it? Contact joris (at) youmagine.com or comment below and we’ll change it if we can.

Interview with artist Bradley Theodore

New York based artist Bradley Theodore makes work that bridges street art, fashion, music and technology. He’s worked on murals in the streets of New York and Hong Kong; done cover art for albums for the Wu Tang Clan, created art for Def Jam, Universal Records, Sony, IAM, Wu-Wear and deployed his painting skills on people, plates and many other media. He makes paintings and murals depicting Anna Wintour & skulls while playfully exploring company logos and popular culture. Bradley has been experimenting with 3D printing for a few years now doing work for music labels as well as his own autonomous pieces. I wanted to get an artists perspective on 3D printing and was intrigued by his work, so asked him for an interview.

Bradley Theodore

Joris Peels: How did you come into contact with 3D printing?

Bradley Theodore: I used to make a lot of vinyl toys. I’d do them myself or have to order pieces in China. I also did graphic work working with for other people. I don’t like deadlines, I want to work at my own pace. If you work for or with people you have people calling you all the time. If you work with a factory to get things manufactured you are very dependent on other people. I was confident I could make things in 3D. I wanted to be independent, to work alone, to be free. Be in a place where I can create within my own serenity, in a bubble, with one visual energy at my own pace. A friend of mine owed me some money so he ended up giving me a 3D printer to repay me.

Cultural icons, popular culture, painted by Bradley Theodore

A lot of artists can’t work with 3D printing directly because they don’t have any 3D modeling skills. How did you acquire them?

I learned how to 3D model in school. I’m really glad that the School of Visual arts gave us 3D modeling classes. I experimented and taught myself more after that. Whats really important is to beyond the basics, acquire good 3D modeling habits. If you don’t learn the good 3D modeling habits, you hack out bad models. I’m still learning and experimenting and I’ve worked with Zbrush and now I’m doing most of my work in Blender.

Face painted by Bradley Theodore

How do you make 3D printed work?

For my 3D printed work I may sketch first on paper but most often jump right into the 3D modeling application. Sometimes I’m making something that is made first in 3D. But, often I’m trying to translate an existing work into 3D. I’ll have a mural or painting and now will make a 3D printed work based on it. After the work is 3D printed I paint it myself. This lets me ad a personal touch to the 3D print.

3D printed Wu Tang piece by Bradley Theodore

Do you think that automated manufacturing technologies such as 3D printing pose a threat to art? Does 3D printed piece have value? After all it could be replicated?

I think that too much reliance on technology may pose a risk to some art objects. This diminishes their value. For some artists its all about the concept, materials and process. This is where they derive their value from. This makes these works not easy to replicate. For my own work it is important to me that I paint the pieces. By painting the color on myself I feel that the “colors are my colors”, it makes each piece individual.

Selected work by Bradley Theodore

Don’t you worry that anyone could do what you do?

Everyone can do what I’m doing. Everyone is an artist & all of us could be artists. Art is one of the things that makes you an individual. It is just that each generation has some artists whose voices are heard louder than others.

Why do you make art?

I make art because I need to. Art to me is producing something that exists in order to make someone feel good. To make someone happy with a piece they like. A work that they like seeing & experiencing, in the street or in their own home.

What are some of the advantages of 3D printing for you as an artist?

3D printing is an enabler for me. It lets me produce work when I want to make it. I can work at my own pace and manufacture things in my own studio. I can create with myself, by myself. I imagine this, I can make this, I can paint it, do anything I want, make it however I want. You don’t have to work with somebody or rely on external parties. It gives me the freedom to make.

What are some of the 3D printed pieces that you’ve made?

I was asked to do some work for a Wu Tang art show and I’ve made pieces for collectors.

What are some of the limitations for you?

I want to make really large things. I am looking to make life sized 3D printed sculpture. This is currently not possible with the desktop machines. I’m trying to find out how to best make large scale 3D printing pieces. There are challenges with the technology but on the whole it enables me.

What will the future hold for you?

At the moment I’m making work. I have 3D printed pieces and paintings. I’m thinking about doing a gallery show next year. Beyond this it is my dream to start an art fab lab on the Turks & Caicos where I am from. A sculpture garden with a studio space. People could then come by get inspired and use machines such as 3D printers to create. To be able to create in a peaceful serene environment like that would be great not only for me but for neighbors and kids as well. Something like this is especially valuable for countries that don’t have a lot of manufacturing. It could teach kids important skills such as engineering, 3D modeling, let them make everyday items and all the while letting them also make art.

I don’t like deadline, work at my own pace. people calling

Fareham College on 3D printing in Education

Ted Turnbull of Fareham College

YouMagine has a passion for education. To see what is exactly happening in 3D printing in education we sat down with Phil Savage and Ted Turnbull of Fareham College in Fareham, in the UK. The college has 4 Ultimaker 2’s & 6 Ultimaker Originals as well as a Replicator x2. The College is committed to getting students of all ages to use the printers. They want to increase the quality and learning of their technology lessons. Most schools that are looking into 3D printing are only getting one machine, for one class. Fareham’s 3D printing implementation is much more extensive. Actually it is one of the most extensive ones I’ve seen so far. I took the time to catch up with them at the TCT Show in order to see if they had any lessons that other schools looking at 3D printing could learn from.

Fareham College students assembling Ultimaker Originals

What does your 3D printing implementation look like?

“The plan with the 3D printing hub is initially geared towards enabling and enthusing teachers learn how to use 3D printers in their education practice.

Student course work and teaching materials are financed by the college, with personal and private work for staff and students produced at cost. Education Budgets in the UK have become increasingly stretched in recent years, so acquiring teaching materials aimed at kinaesthetic learning is financially challenging. The VAK (Visual, Audio, kinaesthetic) model suggests that some students learn by being told things, some learn by being shown something but others learn by experiential physical (kinaesthetic) learning. For this last group of students with the budgets the way they are it is hard to find the teaching tools to enable this. However, 3D printers coupled with a growing range of resources, such as YouMagine, give us the tools we need in to enable this learning experience.”

Kids making 3D printers!

Who operates the machines?

“Its a combination of options. Many students and teachers have received enrichment training or continuous professional development training covering using the 3D printers. In terms maintenance and optimization we have people trained to do that as well. The 3D printers are racked in the back of our largest classroom and someone is always present. When we move to a new facility in the next academic year the printers will be in HVAC controlled space.”

A student placing an axis rod on an Ultimaker one.

What have been the major issues you’ve encountered?

“The biggest issue for us has been funding – Ultimaker’s Create program has been an enabler in this regard. We also had to take into account a range of health and safety issues. In the UK we have to comply with legislation known as COSHH, and we’ve had to perform a detailed health and safety assessment process which took quite a long time. One particular area being issues around the properties of materials such as PLA and Nylon, which were hard to certify because of the comparative ‘newness’ of their use in education for 3d printing.”

What are some of the biggest advantages?

“We’ve an ongoing project with our Child Care and Early Years program for people who want to work in nurseries and in the wider child care sector. We are enabling them, in-house, to design and manufacture bespoke board games, toys and other learning resources, with a professional finish, to use with the context of child care provision. This can be achieved at a fraction of the cost and time, by utilizing 3d printing technology, when compared to almost any ‘traditional’ manufacturing process available in education.

Our sports science department is providing its students with 3D Printed knee joints to help them better visualise, understand and learn about skeletal mechanics. For chemistry, students can be provided with molecular modelling kits, at a tiny proportion of the cost of similar commercial alternatives. In total we have 16 ongoing projects at the college at the moment. Amongst other goals for the year we hope to gather a lot of usage data and evaluate how people use the facility. This information can then inform an iterative development process for our use of the technology just as the wider 3D printing industry does.”

e-NABLE the future conference & Hand-O-Matic 3D printed prosthetics tool

Last week at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, there was an amazing community event, the Prosthetists meet 3D Printers conference. Currently at 1600 volunteers and rapidly expanding, this community is “Enabling The Future.” E-Nable is collaboratively designing, printing and assembling 3D printed prosthetics for children and other underserved populations.

Awesome new hands!

The e-nable conference was an amazing combination of children, parents, physicians, prosthetist, 3D modelers, software developers and many amazing volunteers. Ultimaker has been a big supporter of this event through a donation of $10.000 worth of printers and YouMagine is supporting it by providing infrastructure for sharing and collaborating 3D designs for prosthetics. Everybody is dedicated to make this work and the mix of people all “joining hands” towards a common goal.

272 hands were created by the community and made into kits by 3DUniverse, ready to be built at the event!

Within the community so much progress was made. Many people met in real life for the first time, because e-NABLE operates globally and online. Contributions come from across the globe and are available for use, study, modification and production anywhere. While global, 3D production can be as localised as the home of a prosthetic user on the family’s 3D printer or a relative or someone neighborhood who has one.

Click here for more photo’s that were taken at the event.

The 3D models for the latest design called the “Raptor Hand” were released just before the event. Yuo can find the official files hosted here on YouMagine. It contains the best design elements from several designs that had been made up to that point. Literally, the designers “joined hands” and made it better! Anyone can contribute and anyone can benefit.

The great thing about 3D printing is that it puts no premium on printing something different every time or making something completely customized. The exact measurements of the body can be used to create a perfectly fitting hand, taking into account the amount of padding material to make it comfortable. YouMagine works with the e-NABLE community to deliver a next generation of model customisation tools, starting with the Hand-O-Matic, which is available at e-nable.youmagine.com. This makes generating a tailored prosthetic hand radically easier, because you only need to provide your measurements. We’re proud to be able to support the e-NABLE community.

Hand-o-Matic: Easily create customized 3D printable prosthetics

I also gave a talk at the event. I explored the question of what defines us as humans. Since we differentiated from the apes, our hands have allowed us to create powerful tools which have become a major part of our society. We shape our own tools and our tools are in turn shaping us. Which tools we use and how we evolve them is what defines us. Our perception of the world changes as soon as we realize that we can be a creator of the physical objects around us. This is not new, we’ve just lost touch with the process of making physical things. We can awaken our maker DNA, but now with more powerful tools. The fact that you can collaborate with people around the world to create real objects that matter, that’s a game changer.

Now we’re using collaborative online tools and desktop 3D to provide hands to people who need them. e-NABLE is about community, sharing, giving, collaboration, making, open source and 3D printing. It’s the ultimate example of humanity enabled by powerful tools.

Google Glass Interviews: Christina Rebel of Wikifactory

As part of our Wikimania interviews I interviewed Christina Rebel of Wikifactory. Wikifactory is “developing a collaborative ecosystem to democratise design and production.” They are trying to develop the tools & software so people can make many things together. So a lot like YouMagine!

Follow Christina on Twitter here.

Rights Decay to encourage the sharing of things

We’ve been thinking and talking a lot about rights, IP, sharing, collaboration and innovation at YouMagine. We want to create a good license for 3D printed things and ToS that we can share with the community. And in order to do that we have to take into account many different angles, people and scenarios. At YouMagine we want to encourage sharing, collaboration and innovation. We’ve been thinking of new ways on how to do that. And we think we’ve come up with a new idea that may help this.

If a designer of a thing attaches a particular license to a thing this license permanently locks these rights away in a certain way. So a file may not be used for commercial purposes for example. Many people share and forget leaving a snipped of code of a photo behind somewhere under a certain license where it will stay for years. There are millions of lines of code locked behind licenses that could be shared more freely. Maybe if the designer looked at the file now she wouldn’t mind if the file was used commercially or shared without restrictions? What if to encourage more information sharing we made the licenses more dynamic? A person could always be asked to revisit a file or could unpublish and republish a thing under a freer license. But, speaking from experience we all know that this is not going to happen in a structural way. We’re all lazy creatures and have lots to do.

Picture of a tub of ice cream on a beach melting.

Rights melting like Ice cream. Creative Commons Attribution No Derivates. Dr. Wendy Longo.

What if we build this into the license? What if we gave people the option of saying I will share this under a Share Alike, Noncommercial license and after 12 months it becomes an Attribution license? As time goes on the file is worth less commercially anyway as people make similar things and technology progresses. The person could then monetize the file for the first year and then after it would be freer to share. This would let people build the wonderful heap of open source code that is the sharing world while still letting them profit from their creations. Also long forgotten snippets and photos would released automatically without people having to do anything with them. We like this as an idea and I mentioned it to Michael Weinberg of Public Knowledge during our ToS call and he came up with a name for it: Rights Decay. What do you think?

One Handed Bottle Opener Video

One handed bottle opener

Kart5a is 17 and from Finland. He makes lots of fun 3D printed things, such as the one handed bottle opener. He also makes videos about these things. They explain the printer settings, design changes and show how the product is made. I think this is a great way for community members to share their work and show others how to make things. The videos are in Finish but he’s added subtitles for us so we can all learn about his process. I’d love to see more videos like these!

Extend and customize your Ikea furniture using desktop 3D printers

We’ve seen some real high quality 3D prints of items that either use existing Ikea products or repurpose them in some way. In this way Ikea serves as a design an making platform that you can add to or customize. Because Ikea is everywhere many people can use these files to add to their existing Ikea furniture. I think this is a very interesting development and am always surprised as to how many people are now designing for themselves and using Ikea in this way.

Lina & Thomas have made a lovely flower pot holder that fits Ikea plant pots.

A 3D printed holder for Ikea flower pots.

Ikea flower pots holder

Anders Olson has made a “Extender for IKEA LOGGA shoe rack to increase clearance to enable robotic vacuum cleaners cleaning under it.” This is a very modern extension of an Ikea design.

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